Leaks app installed automatically with Opal Travel: Is it harmful for your device?

Opal Travel is one of the most popular applications from Transport for NSW which allows users to plan their trips and manage their routine travel in Sydney and greater New South Wales across the Opal network. The app recently received an update which the developers rolled out last week. Users who updated the app to the latest version have been noticing that a new app icon appears on the home screen right after installation. The icon has a picture of a deal yellow bird and has been labelled “Leaks.”

This has been a concerning issue for a lot of users who have downloaded the update. Many believe that this could be a virus of sorts which may potentially damage or infect the device.

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What is Leaks app?

'Leaks' is nothing but a developer tool or a memory leak detection library for Android phones. Developers use it to check or detect any memory leaks and reduce crashes related to OutOfMemory Error. In this case, you can call it an Opal Travel developer extension that has been added by the LeakCanary library.

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Image credits: nonba | Reddit user 

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Is it safe to have Leaks app on your phone?

There is no harm in having the app installed on your phone. And as the name might suggest, it does not leak any files or data on your phone. If you choose to uninstall the Leaks app icon, it will also uninstall the main Opal Travel app from your device. However, it is likely that the Leaks app icon will disappear with the next Opal Travel update.

For those unaware, these apps come with both a release version and a debug version where the latter is used for debugging purposes. The release version, on the other hand, goes to the Google Play Store after getting tested. It is clear that Leaks was accidentally included in the release version before getting pushed to the Play Store. However, as we have mentioned earlier, the Leaks icon should be removed with a future update.

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Image credits: LeakCanary